Smelling Color
by hanzai no shippitsu
Summary: Companion to 'Vibrant Color':: Iruka's fourteen, and it's his birthday. Kakashi's brought him a present. All that really matters is the color you can smell.::young!Kakairu::shounen-ai::


Iruka Umino was a fourteen today. He was a ninja and still a Gennin. He'd failed his first Chuunin exam, and he had to wait for his new Gennin teammates to be ready before he could take it again. He had to be patient. His Jounin sensei told him this all the time. She said he was too loud, too restless, too angry, too...

'_Too real, too much...you're nothing a ninja should be...but you are one._'

Iruka didn't mind those words. His sensei hadn't told them to him. Someone else had, and that someone was more important than his sensei. Why that person was, Iruka didn't know. He just was.

For his birthday, he'd gotten a smile and well wishes. His younger teammates had been in silent awe that Iruka was fourteen, and his Jounin sensei seemed a little disappointed. Iruka was a little disappointed too. He was fourteen, and he was still a Gennin. He'd always thought he'd be farther along than this by now, he really had.

"Aaaa!" Iruka slapped himself on the cheeks. "Enough moping! I'm gonna go home and try my hardest tomorrow, _yosh_!"

Iruka skipped along the streets, trying to make the up beat movement his mood. It worked. Moving always made Iruka's mood better. His mother had always joked Iruka was never still, not even when he'd been growing in her belly. After that comment his father would always mimic her moaning and groaning as she tried to get Iruka's tiny foot away from her ribs. Iruka dashed the last few feet to his door and slid to a halt, arm held wide and grinning.

He reached for his traps and found they were already undone. His good mood vanished, and he reached for a kunai. He slipped around his house to bedroom window, and slipped inside that way. He'd just spent the afternoon ambushing his teammates, and he wasn't about to let the same thing happen to him.

Just because he was a Gennin, didn't mean he had to act like one.

Iruka slipped around the door frame and froze. There, sitting in a sunbeam from the glass back door, was a man.

The sun washed his color out a little, and gave his white halo of hair a golden tinge. His black clothes looked grey, and his skin looked white with yellow shades in the shadows. His eyes were closed, but Iruka imagined for a moment they would be yellow too.

For a moment Iruka didn't recognize him, since the sun so distorted his colors, and then he recognized the curve of the jaw and face. He knew the line of that shoulder, and the curve of that hip. A grin, wide and hard, broke out on Iruka's face as the man turned his head towards him and opened his one eye. Iruka swore he was smiling too, though he couldn't be sure when his mouth was covered by a mask.

"Kakashi!" Iruka scrambled across the floor. The man didn't move, and Iruka almost crashed into him. Iruka pressed his chapped lips quickly against the man's cheekbone, right above his mask, and then sat back.

"I thought you were away on a mission," Iruka began, thrilled beyond all mention. Kakashi was back, and he was sitting in Iruka's living room. What could be better than that?

"I came back," Kakashi replied, voice low and smooth. Iruka's still broke and cracked at random. Iruka pulled down the mask, and Kakashi turned his head. Iruka could easily remember the first kiss over stir fry. He didn't know why Kakashi kept coming back, but Iruka was glad he did.

Kakashi sun warmed hand came to rest just below Iruka's jaw, and his one visible eye slid closed. Iruka smiled, though it was really hard to kiss like that. Iruka started giggling and had to pull back. The giggling turned to laughter, and Iruka sat back and just laughed.

When he finally got done Kakashi was smiling, as much as the man ever smiled. Certainly his lips moved, but Iruka never saw any teeth peeking through. Iruka could tell, how some ever, that Kakashi enjoyed it when he laughed, even if Kakashi never laughed himself.

Kakashi suddenly frowned and leaned forward. Iruka noticed a smear of blood on Kakashi's lip as he felt the man's thumb pass over his own lip. It came away tipped in red. Iruka reached up and touched his own rough lips. Hit bottom lip must have cracked when he smiled as he was kissing Kakashi.

"Sorry," Iruka grinned again, and he felt a little blood slip off his lip onto his chin.

Kakashi pulled his sleeve over his hand and pressed it to Iruka's lip. "You should really put something on it." Kakashi dug in his pocket and pulled out a small tin of lip balm. Iruka almost laughed again. who would have thought the great Hatake Kakashi carried lip balm around with him? Most certainly not Iruka, though it explained why his lips were so soft all the time.

Kakashi opened the lid one handed, and pulled his sleeve covered hand back from Iruka's lips. He then, with his pointer finger, spread the lip balm gently over Iruka's chapped lips. Iruka closed his eyes and shivered. He liked the feel of Kakashi's calloused fingers on his lips. He loved it.

"Here, keep it," Kakashi said as he close dup the lip balm tin and pressed it into Iruka's hand. Iruka didn't argue. If there was one thing Kakashi could stand seeing on Iruka, it was blood. He wasn't even fond of seeing Iruka wearing the color red though the same could be said of black. Iruka didn't mind. He usually wore blue, white, or, on the rare occasion, green. Red was too gaudy, and black was depressing.

"_Arigatou_," Iruka smiled in a way that was almost cynical, but not really. Iruka couldn't smile cynically. "What a great birthday present."

Kakashi looked reproachful. "That's not what I got you for your birthday."

"It's okay, you didn't know it was my birthday," Iruka replied, folding a hand around the still warm tin. Kakashi had been away on a long mission when Iruka had turned thirteen, and before that there hadn't been Kakashi in Iruka's life. Kakashi frowned a little, and then his lips quirked up.

"No way! You _did_ know it was my birthday! How did you know?" Iruka had never told him that.

"It was easy enough to find out." Kakashi shrugged, a slow fluid motion Iruka envied. Everything Kakashi did was smooth and fluid. He was a true ninja, and Iruka could never hope to be like him.

"So, what _did_ you get me for my birthday?" Iruka asked, tugging on Kakashi's sleeve like an impatient child.

Kakashi smiled. "Ask nicely."

Iruka scowled at him, and, instead of 'asking nicely', surged forward to kiss Kakashi's lips again. Only Kakashi's quick reflexes kept them from smashing teeth. Iruka swiped the blood of Kakashi's lip with his tongue, and pressed his lips hard against Kakashi's. Kakashi pulled back after a moment and placed three kisses on Iruka face, one on his forehead one between his eyes, and a kiss that was more of a lick on the end of his nose.

"_Koko ni_," Kakashi handed Iruka a small white box. Iruka shifted and sat down almost on top of Kakashi's hip as he opened the box. He peered in, though he already knew what was in the box by the smell.

"Taiyaki! I haven't had this in forever," Iruka cheered. He breathed in the scent, and he knew they were fresh baked. Iruka loved the smell of freshly baked things. His mother had been an excellent cook when she was alive and had kept the house full of lovely baking smells. Iruka breathed deeply and wished he had a better sense of smell. Iruka looked up at Kakashi and wondered if the rumors were true, and he did have an extra acute sense of smell.

"Are you just going to smell it?" Kakashi asked. He was running one hand up and down Iruka's arm.

"_Iya_," Iruka smiled. "Hey, what's it smell like to you?"

Kakashi looked down at him, eyebrow rising. "Like Taiyaki?" Iruka stuck out his tongue, and Kakashi, quick as a wink, grabbed it between his thumb and fore finger. Iruka made a choked noise and wriggled his tongue in a effort to free it. Kakashi didn't let go. Iruka darted his head forward and caught Kakashi's fingers in his mouth. He closed his lips around the digit and glared triumphantly at Kakashi.

Kakashi. Eye brow still raised, released Iruka's tongue. He ran the top of his forefinger's nail across the roof of Iruka's mouth, and pressed his thumb into the space under Iruka's tongue. Iruka opened his mouth to gasp in surprise, and Kakashi removed his slimy digits. Iruka closed his mouth and wondered on the taste of Kakashi's fingers. He really couldn't decide what they tasted like.

"What I meant was, your sense of smell is really good, ne? How does the Taiyaki smell to you then," Iruka asked, still pondering the taste of Kakashi.

Kakshi wrinkled his nose. "It smells like Taiyaki...but...I can tell what was used in it, mostly, and what the filling is."

"What's the filling?" Iruka asked, but Kakashi only smiled in his 'it's a secret' way. "Well, what so _I_ smell like?"

Kakashi froze for a moment, and Iruka saw his expression melt into something Iruka had never seen before. "You-you smell wonderful. You smell like new leaves just bursting from the limb. You smell like love, life, and Iruka. You smell..." Kakashi pressed his nose against Iruka's head. "..most of all you smell brown and blue."

Iruka felt Kakashi's breath ruffle his hair. He was sure he didn't understand half the significance of what Kakashi had said, but he felt warm deep inside–like he did when his mother laughed or his father smiled. Only this warm was nicer, deeper, and somehow different from the warm his parents had caused. Iruka didn't have a name for it, and he didn't think it needed one.

"So, you smell in _colors_?" Iruka asked. He tipped his head back from Kakashi and looked up at him.

Kakashi's lips quirked. "I do everything in colors." his voice was soft, more whisper than sound.

"Even taste?" Iruka asked, eyes alight with mischief. He knew it was there, and he saw Kakashi watching it dance.

"I do, most times," Kakashi replied, wary, but ready for whatever craziness Iruka was going to throw his way. He was always ready for whatever craziness Iruka had. That was one of the things that made him Kakashi.

"What colors do I taste like?" Iruka asked.

Kakashi blinked, and then he smiled. "I don't know, let me see..." Kakashi leaned down and kissed Iruka cheek. His tongue came out, leaving a wet trail all the way to Iruka mouth. "On the outside you taste...brown..." Kakashi breathed across Iruka's mouth. He tilted Iruka's head with a gentle finger, and kissed Iruka's mouth. He pressed his tongue past Iruka's lip, and swept it through his mouth.

Iruka revised his opinion of Kakashi's taste. It was nothing short of wonderful.

After another swipe of his tongue Kakashi pulled back, breathing in puffs across Iruka's skin. "On the inside you taste blue like the sky, and yellow like sunshine."

Iruka laughed, and used both hands to pull Kakashi's lips back onto his. He was going to kiss Kakashi until he figured out what colors _he_ tasted like.

It was a long time before the taiyaki got eaten.

* * *

_A/N:There you go, it's morphed. What was one one-shot is now going to be four, this being the second. Ages for this are fourteen(duh) and seventeen(Kakashi hasn't had his birthday yet-Sept. something), and it's May 26, Iru's b-day. Review please._


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